By Geraldine Hughes
End of the year and another quiet Christmas in sight… A scientific poll, conducted by me chatting to people over 25 tells me, that most of us won’t miss having every minute of December taken up with get togethers, which makes me wonder… does every workplace and friend group have an over enthusiastic social secretary that browbeats us into too many Christmas events each year? And if so, why didn’t we say something before now? Not wanting to be known as a party pooper it looks like we just went along with it! Anyway, I think the best nights out are those that aren’t planned, and anyone that loves nightclubs (Evening-clubs?) now that they have to go to them straight from work in their suits and dance around a pile of laptops until they get thrown out Cinderella -style at midnight.
No one seems especially fed up about the lack of parties, in fact some are almost relieved, a sure sign that Before Covid (or BC for short!) some of us were possibly burning out. I’m saying over 25’s because those under that age have indisputably lost two years of having the craic, losing and finding themselves, making mistakes and fixing them, and being relatively carefree. This year(again!) we’ll all have to find a different way of feeling Christmassy other than red lipstick, high heels and glitterball dresses. As a kiddo, Christmas began for me when my mother would flood the house with the amazing smell of Christmas puddings and Christmas cakes baking. She invested ingredients, time and lots of love into them because she didn’t eat either herself and they were gifts for family and friends. I briefly thought about doing similar myself this year but I don’t know where to start and I’m lazy like that – full of ideas that rarely come to life!
They definitely would make better gifts than my unimaginative bottle of red or white and a scented candle, but in my defence, who doesn’t like one or the other?! Anyway as last year geared up pretty much like this one, I saw no-one so I drank the wine and burned the candles and as a result nobody got anything.
I’d find it harder to dispose of half a dozen Christmas cakes so baking is out as a method for inducing that giddy Christmas feeling. I could Christmas decorate early, and some people do but I have a huge inner resistance to doing that before Dec 1st. I’d really love to hear a choir at Christmas but they are also not allowed, not sure if they are allowed outdoors but I haven’t seen any as yet, but it would be a bit unfair that its ok to bellow out football and rugby chants with thousands of other people but you can’t warm the Christmassy part of your spirit by singing Frosty the Snowman (tunelessly in my case) with a few others but that’s where we’re at and as always, we’ll adapt! Have a happy, peaceful, and safe Christmas, and roll on 2022.